Most of all, we'll remember 2006 for Israel's two-front war in Lebanon and Gaza.

Our Dishonest Reporting awards primarily focus on "fauxtography," the manipulated images, staged photos, and inaccurate captions that repeatedly tainted Mideast coverage. Space didn't allow us to elaborate on many other noteworthy incidents of skewed reporting. Visual veracity was the issue of 2006.

Our intent is not to make sweeping generalizations about all photojournalists. Most are honest people admirably working under difficult conditions; many risk their lives to record history's first draft. But important questions remain unanswered. What safeguards help editors detect altered images? Where do the rush of deadlines and the speed of technology leave the slower work of fact-checking? What do ethical standards, if any, say about posed shots? Were some photographers simply duped?

Foreshadow of the Year: Zoran Bozicevic

This National Post photo editor anticipated "fauxtography" days before war exploded in Gaza and Lebanon. As one dubious photo after another crept into the mainstream coverage, Jules Crittenden, a Boston Herald editor, validated Bozicevic. Crittenden's blunt assessment:

Everyone in the news business gets taken for a ride sooner or later. It's an occupational hazard. What is surprising is the scale of it in Lebanon. And what is tragic about this is, as a Boston Herald photo editor noted, editors everywhere can no longer trust the pictures from Lebanon. The public cannot know what is staged and what is real.

Though Daher insisted to AP that he's just a Lebanese civil rescue worker, the German TV show ZAPP caught him directing other cameramen, posing for photos with casualties and having a body unnecessarily loaded into an ambulance a second time for better footage. ZAPP accused the ubiquitous Daher of abusing the dead. (Wikipedia clarifies the confusion over his name.)

Worst Caption (newspaper): NYTimes

The NY Times was caught up in the fauxtography scandal thanks to a break down in the caption-writing process. This caption in a slide show suggested the man was dead. Bloggers wondered how a man killed in the strike could look so very much alive in the slide show's other images. Ironically, the Times had Hicks' correct caption for the same photo in a separate report on July 27. The Times issued a correction and apologized to Hicks for the bungle. In October, Hicks explained to Photo District News his view of the affair.

Worst Caption (magazine): Time

When a Hezbollah gunman was photographed near a billowing pillar of smoke, Time wrote a caption stating the fire was started by a downed Israeli jet. But Israel didn't lose any aircraft over Lebanon. In fact, the fire was started by exploding Hezbollah rockets destroyed in an air strike.

As other questions threatened to stain the reputation of photographer Bruno Stevens, he posted the story behind the photo on Lightstalkers. He included other notable facts and photos from the scene.

Worst Use of Props: BBC

In this photo, a Lebanese child stands next to an unexploded Israeli shell. Is the child or the bomb the prop? BBC's Martin Asser explains that it was the boy:
When Um Ali Mihdi returned to her home in the southern Lebanese city of Bint Jbeil two days ago, she found a 1,000lb (450kg) Israeli bomb lying unexploded in her living room.

The shell is huge, bigger than the young boy pushed forward to stand reluctantly next to it while we get our cameras out and record the scene for posterity.

Worst Buzzword: "Disproportionate"

Although Israel's air strikes were limited to Hezbollah targets, the word "disproportionate" became the standard catchphrase of criticism. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen debunked the disproportionate use of that buzzword. After the war, it became clear that Israeli strikes were anything but disproportionate.

Retraction of the Year: Kofi Annan

The outgoing UN Secretary General, who joined the global chorus unfairly blaming Israel for the Gaza Beach incident, to his credit, retracted criticisms of the IDF, saying he had responded to "media speculations." We await retractions from those media speculators.

Canard of the Year (USA): Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post

Ricks accused Israel of deliberately leaving Hezbollah rockets intact for P.R. purposes. Appearing on CNN's show, Reliable Sources, he said:
"Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon... . It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well."

Canard of the Year (Europe): Robert Fisk of the Independent

Rushing to judgment, Fisk declared Israel guilty of using uranium-based shells in Lebanon, though UN tests of soil samples were still in progress. The tests didn't detect any unusual traces of uranium, but Independent buried the findings. We await a retraction.

Sympathy for the Devil Award: CBC

When the CBC aired a sympathetic interview with the family of Samir Quntar about the possibility of the Lebanese terrorist's release in a prisoner swap (watch the interview here), they all but ignored the brutal attack that landed him in an Israeli prison, and didn't bother interviewing any relatives of his victims. After HonestReporting-Canada took action, the CBC followed up, interviewing Smadar Haran Kaiser, the woman whose family Samir Qantar murdered (watch the follow-up interview here).

Worst Cartoon of the Year: Martin Rowson of the Guardian

The day after publishing this nasty cartoon, The Guardian apologized, but only because the Jewish stars in the illustration "might have been interpreted as implicating Judaism rather than the Israeli government in the present conflict."

Worst News Executive: Dr. Snuki Zikalala of the SABC

Dr. Zikalala, the news director of the South African Broadcasting Corp., gets this award for blacklisting various reporters, commentators and analysts. Though most personalities were banned for their views on South African politics, Paula Slier found herself blacklisted because her coverage of the Mideast conflict crossed Zikalala's red lines. He wrote in a memo:
From the movement where I come from, we support PLO. But she supported what's happening in Israel... . I said no, you can't you can't undermine the Palestinian struggle, you can't. For me it's a principle issue.

Worst Tangle of Media, Political & Judicial Interests: The French "Establishment"

French media analyst Philippe Karsenty was found guilty of defaming France-2 TV and reporter Charles Enderlin for criticizing the network's footage of Mohammed Dura. Karsenty, the founder and president of Media-Ratings discussed in an exclusive interview with HonestReporting how the trial touched on larger issues of anti-Zionism in the French media, the icon status of Mohammed Dura, Israel's response to the affair, the disturbingly close relationship between French media and political elites, the fairness of French justice, even the role of the new France 24 international news station.

A parallel suit against Pierre Lurcat was dismissed on technical grounds. A third suit against Charles Gousz is yet to begin.

Working for Reuters, Hajj was caught poorly altering one photo of Beirut destruction and another of an Israeli jet firing flares. The doctored images - first spotted by Mike Thorson and blogged on Little Green Footballs - suggested a greater extent of Israeli destruction than really existed. Unlike other "fauxtographs," the sloppiness of Hajj's work suggested not a breakdown of procedure but deliberate doctoring.

Hajj claimed he only used Photoshop to remove dust marks, but Reuters severed all ties with the photographer and removed all 920 of his photos from its database. The furor touched off the heightened scrutiny that led to our other ignoble honorees.

* * *

Hopefully, we'll see in 2007 better safeguards preventing another "Photoshop of Horrors," tighter caption-writing procedures, and clearer and enforced standards addressing posed photos. We also hope that the speed of digital photography and the rush of deadlines don't rush past the needs of fact-checking.

We covered a lot of ground in 2006, and with the help of readers -- our eyes and ears -- we'll continue monitoring the media in the coming year.

Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

HonestReporting, with 140,000 members, is the largest organization fighting media bias in the Middle East conflict. In 2006, HonestReporting launched Media Central, a Jerusalem center providing support services for foreign journalists in Israel and the region.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 5

(5)
John Llewellyn,
February 25, 2007 12:02 PM

Outstanding!

Glad to see the truth about "fauxphotography" coming out. Too bad more of the few Israeli supporting news media doesn't get on the band wagon, here in the U.S.

(4)
marybussing,
December 25, 2006 3:18 PM

I found the article by honestreporting.com very informative, and interesting. I further think that this information should be front page news in every paper in the world. Stand up for the truth!!!

(3)
nechama,
December 25, 2006 3:09 PM

great!!

I WISH MANY MORE PEOPLE WOULD BE ABLE TO READ ABOUT THE 2006 DISHONEST REPORTER AWARD. AS A MATTER OF FACT IT SADDENS ME TO SEE HOW MANY IN THIS UNIVERSE HATE US.

I COPY ALL THOSE DOCUMENTS TO SHOW TO MY NONE JEWISH FRIENDS. TOO BAD I CAN NOT COPY THE MOVIE STRIPS LIKE THE ZAP ONE. DO YOU HAVE A HINT HOW COULD I COPY THEM FOR POSTERITY?

THANKS

NECHAMA KRAMER

(2)
jewlady,
December 25, 2006 8:42 AM

A pox in the head to these biased scum!!

May they all go bankrupt and out of business. Who reads this anti-semetic/israel rubbish that the media publishes? Who has the time to watch these souless inept media puppets attack Israel? Is it any wonder why I canceled my suscribtion to the Old York Slimes and BBC(which I renamed it to BBS)eons ago?May their ratings continue to plummet untill they have none. I call upon the boycott of the media news listed above!

(1)
ZerrickWoolfson,
December 17, 2006 3:29 PM

Encomium Gadol

You are doing wonderful work, which can't be overpraised.

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!